For The Defense. M.J. Rodgers

and waved his arms, trying to get me to stop.”

      “Did you try to stop?”

      Connie’s chin dropped to her chest. “I tried to steer around him, but I was crying, and I couldn’t see him anymore. All I could see was Amy.”

      “Connie, did you want to kill Bruce?” Jack asked.

      “No. I only wanted to get away from him.”

      Jack gently lifted Connie’s chin with his fingertips. The pain on her face bore witness to the truth of her words.

      CHAPTER THREE

      DIANA ACCEPTED Jack’s suggestion to talk about the case over lunch. Normally, she ate at her desk, unwilling to accept the long lines that were inevitable at good restaurants. But talking with him while grabbing a bite would actually be a more efficient use of their time.

      Still, she felt uneasy.

      She’d worked closely with both Richard and David Knight on cases, even shared an occasional meal with Richard without a moment’s unease. Jack’s brothers were also very good-looking, but she felt different around Jack, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on why.

      It probably had something to do with watching him work his magic on Connie. That had been damn scary. Jack knew how to get a woman to talk to him and to trust him with effortless charm. She had no doubt that he could probably make a woman believe anything he said.

      How could a woman ever know when he was being sincere?

      Diana led the way to a favorite restaurant not far from her office. They got a great table on the second-story terrace that overlooked the street below. The day was dull, as most days in Western Washington were. In the distance the snow-capped peaks of the Olympic Mountains wore dark lumpy hats of cumulus clouds.

      But the early summer temperature was mild and the air tasted sweet, reminding Diana that people whose jobs chained them to desks all day needed to get out for a little natural light and fresh air once in a while.

      The restaurant catered to business clientele, its patrons appropriately attired. But Jack had taken off his suit coat and tie, opened the collar of his shirt and rolled its sleeves to the elbows. Despite the lack of sunshine, he wore large reflective sunglasses and—what was strangest of all—a false beard.

      After the waiter had taken their orders and scurried away, the reason for Jack’s altered appearance finally occurred to Diana.

      “Do you still get recognized when you go out in public?” she asked.

      “Enough that I do my best to avoid it.”

      “How do fans react to seeing a screen villain in the flesh?”

      “Depends on the fan. The nice ones smile and ask for my autograph.”

      “And the others?”

      “They demand to know why I stole my uncle’s business while he was in the hospital with a brain tumor, refused to give my nephew part of my liver when he required a transplant, drove my horse-racing competitor to suicide, seduced my sister’s best friend when she was in mourning, denied her baby was mine and then tried to murder her husband when he returned from the Amazon—having not been killed in the plane crash after all—only to find he was my long-lost brother who had been raised in the orphanage when we were separated as infants.”

      She shook her head in amusement. “My, my, you were busy. I must have missed taping a few of the shows.”

      “I’m surprised you taped any. You don’t strike me as a soap fan.”

      “Mel was writing a paper that involved your TV character, and my assignment was to preserve your performances via the VCR,” she admitted. “You might find her conclusions interesting reading.”

      “If Mel wrote the paper, I might find her conclusions above my reading comprehension.”

      He was smiling, and Diana suddenly found herself smiling back. She knew few adults—and no men—who would have felt comfortable enough with themselves to admit that, even in jest.

      This man had a couple of nice points about him.

      The waiter delivered Diana’s seafood salad and Jack’s sliced roast beef along with their iced teas. Diana realized she was quite hungry and dug in. Her first bite tasted heavenly. This sure beat yogurt and an apple at her desk.

      “I understand why you don’t want Connie convicted of murder,” he said between bites. “That would be unjust.”

      “I’m glad you feel that way,” she said, and she was. But she was cautious, too. “Now tell me why you feel that way.”

      She studied his face for any sign of the confidence with which he’d greeted her that morning. Or the captivating attention he’d lavished on Connie. But his sunglasses and beard hid so much of his face that reading any expression was next to impossible.

      “Connie isn’t capable of intentionally squashing a bug, much less a man,” he said. “I can’t imagine that anyone talking with her for five minutes could think otherwise.”

      Actually, Diana knew a lot of people too cynical to see her client for who she was. She was relieved to learn Jack wasn’t one of those people. That told her something important about him that nothing else could have. He did have some genuine emotional substance beneath the polished surface.

      “Have you told the prosecutor what happened?” he asked.

      Diana’s mouth was full of chunks of tender shrimp and fresh avocado. She shook her head in response.

      “I think you should. Any prosecutor who heard Connie’s story would understand that she wasn’t responsible for her actions at the time she ran over Bruce Weaton.”

      Diana swallowed before responding. “Any prosecutor in the wonderful world of TV maybe. In real life our Chief Prosecutor has too much time and effort invested in proving Connie’s guilt to entertain any thoughts of her possible innocence.”

      “You don’t think he’d care about getting to the truth?”

      “All George Staker cares about is arranging the facts in front of a jury so he wins the case. If I told him Connie’s story, he not only wouldn’t believe me, he’d do everything within his power to use the information against her.”

      “You’ve been up against Staker before,” Jack guessed.

      Diana nodded.

      “Tell me about it.”

      She sipped her tea as she gave his request some careful thought. It would be fair to tell him, she supposed. If he stayed on this case, he would need to know exactly what he’d be up against. Relating the basic facts should be enough.

      “My client was a retired military man in his sixties, taking care of his wife who had terminal cancer,” she began. “He got up to attend to her in the middle of the night and inadvertently gave her too much medication. In the morning, he found her dead. Staker claimed the man had deliberately given his wife an overdose to collect on her term life insurance that was due to expire. He charged him with murder.”

      “Are you sure your client was innocent?”

      “Positive. I spoke to the hospice nurse. She’d visited the night my client’s wife died and administered pain medication without mentioning that fact to my client. He was asleep on the couch, exhausted from caring for his wife. When he was awakened a few hours later by his wife’s moaning, he gave her another dose of medication, assuming she hadn’t had any. When I learned all this, I went to Staker and asked him to drop the charges.”

      “He didn’t,” Jack guessed.

      “And he used what I told him to strengthen the state’s case. In his opening statement to the jury, he said the hospice nurse had spent many nights at my client’s home, implying they were having an affair. When the hospice nurse got on the stand,